Come On
by Missy Jade
Summary: [AMC, BtVS, Ats] In 2006, the new Council, led by Roger WyndamPryce, has many secrets, all deadly and feuled by his ambitions. Now, it's up to two ragtag groups to save the world... again [Fuffy, Weda, BAM and others]
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: All My Children belongs to ABC and Anges Nixon; Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the series belong to Mutant Enemy and the Great All Knowing Head. I know that Joss will never sue his Followers but I'm not too sure of Frons and McTravesty..._

_AN: This is an All My Children and BtVS crossover so I'd advise you to not read this unless you have some idea of who the characters are in the soap-side of this fic. However, that side is AU to the extreme so that might be highly variable. I made the difficult decision to post this on the BtVS side and not the AMC and I do hope it pays off._

_This goes AU as of 'Chosen' for Buffy and 'Home' of Angel and the ships are many, including a few that some might find disturbing. Flames will be used to feed my rabid Plot Bunnies and my narcissistic Muse. If you do not enjoy a loving and relationship between two females, I suggest you find something different for yourself since this will include the Buffy/Faith pairring and the Bianca/Maggie (AMC) pairring. If anybody reads this, and you would like a list of the couples I ma planning for this, give me a review and I will send you a list. Now, read and, please, if you enjoy, give me some feedback._

**_

* * *

Come On_ **

_You've got your lights turned so they can see you  
The very best of what you've got to offer  
Tell them what your hands were made for  
Tell them who your mouth was made for_

_You've got your prophets and your mathematicians  
The vocal fuel of a generation  
Tell me what my hands were made for  
Tell me who my mouth was made for_

_And please don't be mad at me  
You'll get what you ask for  
Come on come on come on_

_So very close to what you had expected  
It makes it hard to keep my head up level  
Tell me I'm what your hands were made for  
Tell me I'm who your mouth was made for_

_And if you come down on me  
Well you'll get what you ask for  
Come on come on come on_

_I, I want to get myself back  
I, I want to get myself back  
All of the things  
That you promised me that you'd be  
Now your hands are tired  
And all of the things  
That you promised me that you'd need  
Now my hands are tired  
Come on come on come on_

_- Tegan and Sara, "Come On"_

_Chapter One_

_

* * *

Seattle, 2006 _

Dr. Jameson had started her on a stronger medication a few days before and they had been sitting in the bottom of her black bag ever since she had gotten them. Now, her feet chilly against the tile floor of her bathroom, she studied the bottle in her hands with dark eyes, biting her lip the smallest bit.

Her reflection, stark beneath the jarring florescence of the light above her, was just as jarring, large smudges beneath eyes once bright even in the face of the funeral a year before, eyes that were now beginning to show the strain of the nightmares and the resulting sleepless nights, eyes now murky in the silence. She had taken to getting up and basically drowning herself in coffee to stay awake, to keep those… _things_ out of her head.

The bites along her lip became stronger, teeth gnawing unhappily as she shook the bottle once, the pills inside rattling and the sound disturbing in the perfect silence of her perfect bathroom, a room of white porcelain and soft pastels, of expensive shampoos and exotic lotions, things that she used without a second thought.

Jonathon had said these would work.

It was the thought that decided her and with an explosive sigh, Bianca popped the lid off the bottle, hesitating for a moment before dumping two into her palm and studying the tablets with a pained wariness. Anything strong enough to keep his nightmares away had to be enough for these things that had been plaguing her…

…right?

Even as quickly as she swallowed them, followed by a guzzling of mineral water, she still tasted them and it made her stomach lurch harshly and she hoped she wouldn't bring them back up because then she'd have to take them again and who wanted that? Well, certainly not her.

The lid was replaced and she put them in the cabinet, closing it and turning away from the reflection as quickly as she could, leaving her bathroom and treading across the floor of her bedroom towards her massive bed, the sheets and covers upset and tangled, pillows strewn about. She tidied it up quickly, noting joyfully how sluggish her movements were already becoming.

When she finally crawled into bed, she managed to move her head twice before she fell asleep, eyes closing and dark hair mashing into her pillow as her breathing evened out and her muscles loosened and her mind went blessedly, wonderfully blank. For the first time in weeks, Bianca Montgomery finally slept, the drugs doing their job.

* * *

Maggie's meal, a burger from work, sat cold in the paper bag on the end of the bed. She wasn't hungry; she usually wasn't these days, and she'd dropped it there when she got back to the apartment, left it there while she changed out of her uniform and showered, pulling on something out of her duffel bag and settling against the headboard, flicking through the six channels silently. 

Her only real possessions, other than her clothes, sat by her bed, a neat stack of photos, bound by rubber bands. The photos were looked through constantly, flipping through them and, sometimes, she cried but only when she was truly tired, really exhausted and her control over her memories slipped and she let herself wallow in her unspeakable grief.

Tonight was no night for grief and she found herself considering that with a numb sort of curiosity.

The pain had no words, no way to put them out and speak them and she didn't want to, didn't want to bind such things to words that could be twisted, had been twisted around to hurt her and make her weak. She'd learned her lesson, curled in the back of the bus, bruises and scratches aching in the silence that had become her life, the scent of the smoke clinging to her hair and her skin, sunk into her jeans and top and jacket.

Maggie dropped the remote away, sliding her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees, chilled by the remembrance of that heat. Her eyes flicked to the pictures and she gave in, gave up and pulled them into her lap, yanking off the band with oddly numb fingers and flipping through the images.

She'd promised herself, all day long while avoiding trucker hands and trying to keep count of orders and plates, that tonight she would relax and just plan for her next move, come up with the next place she would go to after she left Seattle. The next town, the next city, the next place that Frankie would never see.

* * *

Slayers healed fast, they healed well and rarely carried real scars. Faith had been injured many times in her life, both before and after being Called and she bore old, slight scars from her childhood, like the spot behind her knee from when she had fallen off that tree and the mark on her shoulder from climbing out of a broken window in the middle of the night. 

The only real mark that marred her body was the line that had been created by a knife on a clear May evening in 1999.

Now, silent and still, Faith ran a thumb along the scar on her stomach, a constant reminder of something not put into words or spoken of anymore, not now that the world was saved and the whole Utopian society could be created. Yeah, that was what B always wanted, right?

She pulled her hand from her stomach, shifting in the driver's seat of the truck and eying the shape leaning against the wall of the alley, a huddled mass just perceptible within the heavy trench coat and the Fedora pulled low over his face, squirming nervously every few minutes like the twerp he was.

Nothing in the world was more insanely boring as stake-out.

Faith Lehane was, and always would be, a woman of action and being forced to fold herself up in a truck was beyond torture for her. As of this moment, she had not left the seat in over three hours and was literally itching, body tightly wound in anticipation of whatever she'd hopefully be pounding on sometime soon.

Some of her stress might also have something to do with the fact that she hadn't had sex in how many months?

Sighing, propping her feet up on the dashboard, she checked her watch unhappily, noting the time and knowing full-well that he wouldn't be there tonight, just like he hadn't been there for the last week. All this bribing and threatening and, what, he decided to play hooky every chance they gave him?

Giles' attempts to get Buffy to help them find such evidence about the existence of this Seer person—wherever the hell he or she was—had been a failure since god knew she couldn't be taken away from her precious job of buying shoes and dresses and other junk while she whined the entire time about how she couldn't have a normal life.

Who said Faith was bitter?

* * *

Jonathon Lavery jiggled his keys furiously in the lock, then jiggled them more forcefully. After a moment, he growled softly and kicked at the door, swearing quietly in disgust at his stupid lock, the lock that apparently had something against him. Yeah… everything had something against him… 

He was the slightest bit drunk and while he knew this, on some level, he was still pissed off at how his door refused to cooperate with him at the moment.

A look of surprise crossed his face when the door opened and he shook himself a little bit before pushing his weight against it, slipping into the apartment and pausing, going completely still at the sight of the wreckage. The sofa was torn to shreds, ripped open while papers and Post-Its lay strewn around resembling, to Jonathon's booze-fogged mind, dead fishes.

His apartment, cheap as it was, was broken into on a regular basis but this, accompanied by a nervous lift of the hair on the back of his neck and arms, was different and the sudden flare of concentration startled him a bit of his drunken daze, making his dark eyes narrow and his shoulders tense in warning.

The next minutes were spent stepping his way through the mess, now focused on his worry and the nagging uneasiness that they somehow had found what they were looking for and had left with it. So the question became, what the hell had they been looking for with such fervor and why the hell was he suddenly so worried?

_

* * *

Cleveland… _

He'd had worse and he was oddly grateful for it now, with his arms half-curled around himself and his head bowed, blue eyes intent on the steam pouring out of the shower, fogging up the mirror behind him, a soft heat that made him oddly pleased and made it easier for him to move, albeit slowly.

Hot water was something Connor still felt awed by, even after the years since he had gotten here.

He managed to get his clothes off, wrestle them off with only the barest sounds of pain, hating them and knowing full well that they would have spelled death in the place that he had grown up in. he was getting soft and he hated it, could feel himself becoming weaker in those dangerous invisible ways with every day spent like this.

He'd had worse.

And because he'd had worse, he was able to clean off the blood, able to take care of his broken body, slow cautious movements becoming stronger and braver as his muscles grew less sore beneath the heated water, something he'd never had in that other place and something others in this place took for granted.

He'd had worse.


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: Hey, look, I got a review and, since the chapter was done, here it is. Any questions you might have regarding this freaky crossover may be fielded to me, loves and I shall answer as best I can. Anyway, I appreciate any feedback you all may have for me and sincerely hope you enjoy this chapter._

_Buffy fans are the best... you always review... right...?_

_**

* * *

Come On**_

_Chapter Two_

_Seattle, 2006_

Andrew Wells had, when she ate another one of his Hot Pockets, punched Faith hard as he could in her arm. Now, of course, the geek had been unable to actually harm her in any form yet the brunette had proceeded to chase his skinny ass through the Cleveland two-story house like a dog before tackling him and getting a hold of him, proceeding to drag him to the bathroom.

The horrified look in Xander's eye should have been a hint of the torture to be inflicted on him.

Three hours later, she had left his bedroom, the remains of his Jedi Special Edition action figures littering the ground like broken bodies, having been taken to with a hammer. A glance to the back of his bedroom door had revealed the young man, bound by duct tape and gagged, hanging from a hook, to be rescued by a giggling Xander.

It had been the beginning of the Geek vs. Slayer war, now infamous among those who knew the Slayer and the almost good-guy who was known to dress the littlest Slayers in _Star Trek_ wear every Halloween. Despite Willow's many attempts to keep him away from the Sunny Potential preschool, he always found his way there, every Halloween, much to the consternation of the witch and Giles.

In the last year and a half, there had been many fatalities, including several pairs of leather pants (found studded with the words 'Backstreet Boys Rule!' in bright pink), the Special Edition Star Wars DVD boxed set (the DVDs found carved up with the words 'Star Wars sucks' on each and hung above his bedroom door like a string of garland), a knife (now smelling permanently like garlic and onions), and Faith's latest retaliation, spray painting Andrew's Darth Vader costume bright pink.

Hunching more deeply into his trench coat, Andrew shot the shape in the truck a dirty look, considering his next attack on her. However, a second later, he swallowed back a soft squeak of fear when he noticed the shape at the end of the alley, lumbering toward him, a low dragging sound coming with it.

Perhaps it was a headless corpse, he though, backing up so quickly that he smacked against the wall. Perhaps the gruesome remains of a demon who had decided that it was more evil and demonic than he was, perhaps it was a tail edged with razor-sharp spines or other not nice things, perhaps it was…

Andrew stared at the black garbage bag for a moment before glancing at the demon, who stared back with beady yellow eyes. "Is there a headless corpse in there?" A shake of a head, the dim lights above them glinting off the curling horns adorning the head. "Are there gruesome remains of a demon who tried to whoop your ass?"

"No, kid…" He moved the bag closer, opened it up and revealed its contents. "It's my trash." This so stated, he hefted the bag and tossed it into the Dumpster at Andrew's side before wiping off his hands on his bathrobe with a noise of disgust. "Now… who're you again, kid?"

"Andrew."

The demon stared, blinked before reaching up to scratch a horn with one long talon. "Smart and sassy demon conjurer… Watcher in training… anti-hero…" Yellow eyes remained blank, the arm dropping down to his side and Andrew heaved a sigh, scuffing a foot against the grimy ground before snapping, "I'm Tucker's brother."

"Oh!" With a rough laugh that made Andrew think of two bricks rubbing together, he slammed a talon down on Andrew's shoulder hard enough to make the young man wobble on his feet. Tugging down the lapels of his trench coat in annoyance he adjusted his fedora with a sniff. "Tucker… now there was a demon conjurer… where is he by the way…?"

"Mental hospital," Andrew chirped absently. "But he's a favorite and all the nurses love him best."

"Good for him." The demon stretched, sighing, before eying the young man with those cat-like eyes of his. "So why'd Tucker's little bro call up Bubba Joe after all these years?"

"Bubba Joe?" Faith laughed, stepping up close to Andrew and elbowing him the smallest bit. "I thought the twerp was just joking about that name. You're really called Bubba?" The demon snorted, shrugging. "In my dimension, Bubba is the finest of names… I don't get the laughter about it… what's the joke?"

"Nothing," both voices responded and there was an awkward pause before Bubba Joe said, "What's all this trouble with getting me for some talk?"

"Seer," Faith chirped, hooking her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans and leaning back on her heels for a moment, studying the horned demon with doe-eyes and curved lips. "We've been getting all kinds of information but nothing really useful… a friend of ours says it might be connected to all the Slayers."

"Slayers?" An odd quality there, in the demon's voice and Faith moved slightly, shifting her weight the smallest bit and turning, better to protect Andrew if the Bubba guy went for him.

"Girls, super-strength, usually good with quips and fashion sense, almost always travel in packs these days."

"From what I heard, there aren't enough to travel in packs these days." Silence then, yellow eyes meeting dark ones and Faith cocked her head, trying to figure out the something in the back of his gaze that was making the muscles in her back tighten up in wary awareness. "From what I hear, they've been getting taken down left and right… what does the Bunny think of this?"

"It's Buffy," Andrew offered and Faith rolled her eyes, jerking her elbow back and ramming it, almost gently, into his gut, causing him to groan and sink to the ground. "What do you know about this?" she snapped at the demon, who flicked a glance at the crumbled male and then back at the dark Slayer.

"Just what I heard…" He stopped, seeming to hesitate, rolling his shoulders uneasily. "Look, Bunny… Buffy… Magic-Fluffy-Girl... whatever her name is, give her a message from the underworld, huh?" Another pause, even more uneasy than before and the sight of him wringing his talons together like a nervous kid would no doubt stick in her head for years. "You can't cheat in the Big Game. It isn't done because bad things always happen."

"Big Game?" Faith edged cautiously and Bubba took a small step back, shooting her a look before straightening, apparently trying to regain whatever control over his own fear that had been weakening. "What about this Seer we're wondering about…?"

"Just tell her about the Big Game," he snarled and then he spun, taking off at a surprising speed, massive bulk seeming to flit from shadow to shadow before simply vanishing. Gone, just like that after telling her some weird cryptic shit and with Andrew still crumpled at her feet, groaning.

"Come on," she hissed, bending and grabbing his arm, pulling him up before heading back to the truck, shoving him into the passenger seat and swinging up into her own, starting the ignition and unhooking her cell phone from her belt, passing it to Andrew with a silent order.

* * *

The only real connection she had left to Pine Valley, her half-sister Kendall Hart, was surprisingly unstrained these days, eased by the phone calls they shared once or twice a week and visits home for the holidays. Bianca was okay with Kendall visiting her place but she couldn't stand the thought of Erica Kane running in and remodeling.

Bianca liked her home exactly as it was… usually… except for that whole completely alone thing…

Now, with a sigh of disgust, Bianca Christine Montgomery picked at her plate of shrimp fettuccini, not really hungry but making herself take a bite every few minutes. Dark eyes intent of the food and concentrating on making herself eat, she jumped about a mile when Jonathon Lavery slid into the seat opposite hers, regarding her with his cool dark stare.

"What?" she snapped finally, squirming the smallest bit beneath the force of his gaze and favoring him with a bit of a glare, the edges of her consciousness aching with the headache she could feel brewing in her skull and not in the mood for the usual cryptic crap of the closest thing she had to a friend.

Wasn't that pathetic?

"Did the pills work?"

"Yeah." She dropped the fork down the bowl, reaching up to massage her temple with two fingertips and he received one of her nastier glances, a shadow of pain hovering in the back of that dark gaze of hers, a weakness that he recognized and quickly slipped away. "Yeah… then they wore off at about three in the morning and I nearly had a stroke."

"Why?"

"Nothing." She shook her head, more for herself than him and then looked away from him, clearing her throat, her hands moving restlessly across her face and neck, unhappy shifts that matched her mood. "When I called you last night you didn't pick up so I gotta ask as a pissed-off woman with a migraine, why didn't you answer me?"

"I was busy… are you gonna finish this?" At her shrug, he scooted her picked-at bowl closer and, wiping off the fork with a quick flick of his wrist, he began eating, twisting to scoop up noodles, gulping it down and swallowing and when she glanced up, she quickly looked away, her stomach lurching at the sight.

By the time the nausea had dissipated, Jonathon had basically finished and was running a piece of the untouched bread along the edges, scooping up whatever sauce he could. "Jonathon?" Her voice was slightly weak and he mumbled something around the bread that she took as an answer, asking as calmly as she could, "Haven't you eaten yet today?"

"Not yet." He coughed once, swallowing the last bit before wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. "I've been running around for a while, went to sleep late, woke up early and I haven't been still long enough to actually get something to eat." He leaned back, dropping one arm over the back of his seat, offering her a cocked eyebrow.

"Good for you." Wanting to get out of the brightly restaurant very suddenly and needing to take something strong, Bianca pulled her wallet out of her bag and plucking a fifty out. Passing it to him, she shoved the wallet back into her bag and dug out the glasses that had become her constant companion, slipping them on. "Pay for my food and get yourself something, okay? The last thing I need is for you to die of starvation the day I decide I need your help on something."

"Mm-kay, sugar momma." When she simply gave him a look, and he didn't need to see her eyes to know she was glaring, he smirked, cocking that stupid eyebrow again. "I feel like a hotter and more dashing Kevin," he chuckled and she gave a sigh, standing and leaving him alone to order something for himself, heading for the door.

Stepping out, she managed to get five steps before slamming into something that was barreling for the door. Staggering back and grabbing onto something that felt like a trashcan, she caught a flash of dark hair and a hint of a waitress's uniform beneath a heavy coat before the person was gone, restaurant door closing behind her.

Bianca stood there for a moment, side throbbing from the force of the collision before, with a grimace and general swearing toward all waitresses, she headed for her car, tossing in her bag to the passenger seat and dropping into her own. A split second, catching sight of the female face in the back seat, she jerked, hand flying to her throat in surprise.

The figment of her imagination, which of course it was, looked more than a little bit annoyed, dark eyes skimmed with anger and face stony. "You're really pissing me off, you know…" When Bianca looked away forcefully, trying to put the key in to the ignition, the figment of her imagination—or, maybe, a symptom of her apparent breakdown—made a noise of disgust, shaking her head. "Look… stop ignoring me."

Bianca continued to ignore her, finally managing to start the ignition and refusing to look at the female in the backseat, someone who wasn't really there because the girl, whoever she was, clearly wasn't there. She wasn't real and she wasn't there and for a moment Bianca closed her eyes, focusing on the presence that she was so acutely aware of.

When she looked back up at the rearview mirror, there was nothing there and she worked not to give in to the almost hysterical relief. It was getting harder to do that, getting harder to make the things and people go away. This one though was more difficult than most, frighteningly persistent and she wondered if it was a sign that he really was losing her mind, that she could no longer control any part of it.

With something effectively under control, at least for now, Bianca pulled out of the parking lot, heading for her offices, intent on not having any more problems today.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Come On**_

_Chapter Three_

_London, 2006_

Wesley had finally sent her the samples of Dawn's hair and blood at her asking, hesitant until Giles had vouched for her. Ever the faithful Watcher to the one thing that had to be sheltered, he was becoming almost paranoid in his training and protectiveness of the younger Summers sister, wary whenever anyone connected to the new Council stepped forth for something from Dawn, unless Giles spoke up.

Not that she could blame him in the slightest, though, especially not with what those idiots at the Council had tried to do when they found out she'd begun to show symptoms of her true nature, something they were becoming obsessed with. After all, it looked like the era of the Slayers was ending now, after all these millennia.

Why wouldn't they want the Key?

In slacks and a long-sleeved top, she set the mug of coffee at the table before taking a seat and flipping through her notes, once again eying the test results. Same as before she noted with a hint of a smile, the beginning of delight making her eyes sparkle the smallest bit in the early morning.

Giles would have a right to be smug, she decided as the hint became a full-blown smile and she set the papers aside, leaning back in her seat and beginning to drink her coffee. There'd never been anything like this but it made sense didn't it? You couldn't create a life from just one source. It didn't work like that, something even the coven in Cleveland agreed with, sometimes with a hint of reluctance.

Now, the question was finding out who had been used to make Dawn with Buffy's essence.

* * *

_Seattle_

Setting the last plate on the tray, Maggie finally looked up at the eyes that had been watching her for the last ten minutes, never wavering no matter how often she had tried to throw him off. He didn't look the slightest bit ashamed that she had caught him at his stare, just lifted an eyebrow in amusement before wiggling two fingers in greeting.

With the tray against her hip, she headed over, noting the way he leaned more against the booth, hooking his arms across the back and regarding her with dark eyes that were carefully vacant of anything other than something playful and boyish, something harmless and innocent that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, not out of fear but of a wary warning to watch herself around him.

Dangerous.

It bloomed in her mind, bloomed until there was nothing else and she rarely had these moments, these heartbeats of absolute, almost frightening clarity that she'd never had before 2003, before the night that she'd woken up in tears, something dark and horrible tearing into her mind and her memories as she listened, shaking and shivering and sobbing in her bed, to the screaming.

Dangerous or not though, he was the customer and she shifted her weight, finally asking as lightly as she could, "Anything you need?"

"Nope." He nodded to the remains of some feast, two plates and three empty glasses, nothing left in or on any of them; without taking her eyes off him, she placed the tray on the table and began to clean it off, carefully stacking and organizing each as he motioned with his chin to what she hoped was her name tag. "Maggie, huh?"

"Yes." She lifted the tray again, balancing it carefully for a moment before relaxing, holding it easily with one arm, not a single shake or waver to show how heavy it really was, something she regretted when she caught the way he was looking at her arm. Pretending to be weak was something she'd never gotten the hang of and she found that most of her trouble was caused by people who got curious about her impressive show of strength.

"Isn't that heavy?" The remark, innocent as it sounded was anything but and she gave him a chilly look, brown gaze becoming wintry. He simply continued to regard her with that almost maddening playfulness, that disturbingly perfect innocence that was setting off every warning bell she had. "No, not really."

She left then, leaving him to sit there and took the dishes back to be cleaned and sanitized by Bill, still wary over him but knowing full well that she could break him as easily as a normal woman would break a pencil. But she still didn't come out from the back until he had left, dialing a number into his cell phone as he did.

* * *

"For the fifth time, yes, it was her," Jonathon snapped, becoming weary of the constant insistence that he could not possibly have met her in a restaurant with her flinging plates. Leaning against his car, hand in the pocket of his jeans, he eyed the outside of the restaurant with dark eyes, considering.

"Look, it was Maggie Stone, I'm sure of it— No, you idiot, it isn't the other one." He paused, and then rolled his eyes in disgust. "Have you forgotten the whole 'broken neck' thing, huh? This isn't Frankie. This is Maggie, the other one… yeah, the survivor… yes, I'm sure… I'd bet money on it…"

He fell silent listening for a minute or so more, his gaze still on the building and head cocked in thoughtfulness before he finally interrupted, voice sharper, edged, when he answered, "Trust me… I know" before snapping it shut and turning, opening the door to his car and dropping in, setting the phone aside.

He cast one more glance at the building, one last careful memorization of it before he nodded to himself and started the ignition, waiting for the return call and what it would provide for him. That was Maggie Stone, of that he had no doubt and, being a man of decisions, he made one now and began thinking up ways to find Maggie Stone outside of work.

_

* * *

Cleveland_

"The Big Game?" he asked again, once more, just to be sure of what Faith was telling him. "Are you sure he wasn't talking about some baseball game or something? I mean, he was wearing a bathrobe and taking out his trash." At Faith's aggrieved sigh and muttered swear, he nodded to himself and quickly noted in the margins of the notebook 'Don't piss off Faith, even miles apart'.

"I admit to being completely baffled by whatever this is. I mean, the Big game? It makes no sense to me but when does anything ever make any sense—don't answer that," he added quickly, hearing the sharp intake of breath and knowing that she would just to try to make him cringe.

"Aw, Rupert, you know me so well."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" He hesitated, considering before cautiously asking, "What have you done to Andrew now?"

"What?" she asked and the innocent act was so apparent that his fillings begin to throb in irritation, and he rubbed his face in annoyance, gathering his wits before he replied with a rather rude snap of, "He called up a few nights ago in tears and babbling something or other about how you went after his D&D game?"

A long silence, and he knew full well that the young woman was fighting too keep from laughing out loud at the expense of the young man no doubt listening in. "I didn't know he found that yet. I decided to do a sneak attack and went after that stupid game and the costume the same night. So he found the game… where?"

"Under his bed. You hid it under his bed, Faith?"

"Uh-huh."

"Faith…" He stopped, flustered before forcing himself to grind out, "You are a Slayer and a good one at that, even when you are slightly homicidal—"

"Thanks for that."

"The point is, Faith, that you are a Champion, a fighter for the good, not a high school student enacting out the Battle of the Nerds. Just because Andrew has the maturity level of a five year old does not mean that you have to sink to his level. My God, you're as bad as Xander… is it any wonder Willow and I had to separate those two like we did?"

"I'm not gonna be enacting the scene from 'Weird Science' anytime soon with a bra on my head, Giles."

Quickly squashing down that disturbing and all-too fresh memory in his head, Giles cleared his throat once or twice before managing to choke out, "Be sure you don't!" before slamming the phone down, wishing there was some way to shove the young man on someone else. He would die before he let Xander get close to him again because that, with the bras and the chanting in Klingon…

With another shudder, he began to come up with names and numbers of contacts, anyone who could help him figure out the meaning of this 'Big Game' and why Buffy needed to be told about it… only he could retire and end up with more work than ever before.

_

* * *

Seattle_

Erica had accepted, after many weary hours of arguing and bickering that Bianca had been right in her decision to move back to Seattle, and not just to attend Travis' funeral. She hadn't been there when her father had been killed and for that, she'd always be sorry, sorry she hadn't made it to the hospital in time to say good bye, the only one of his children to not say good-bye.

When Erica had announced that she was going to open a new branch of Enchantment in the city where Bianca had lived, she had seen right through her mother's defenses and, while she'd been a bit weary of the Kane's real motives, she had taken her mother's offer to keep hold on that branch.

Under Bianca's control, and of course with Greenlee and Kendall's tutelage in the background, the investment her mother had made had paid off beyond her wildest dreams and she was fast making her mother's every dream and hope for her come true. And, on some level, she was enjoying it as well, just not as much as her mother.

The original terror felt when she'd realized just what it was she was undertaking had acted almost like a drug, keeping her border-line excited no matter how calm she felt and each early decision, even knowing that Greenlee and Kendall had given her the right hints, had filled her with a tightness in the chest and a tingle in her skin until she heard that it had been a success.

Now, though, Bianca found herself feeling mired, felt like she was stuck in one place, tied down and helpless while her entire life passed her by. She was still young, not yet in her prime and she was already terrified of being nothing but a cog in the machine, something that could be replaced as easily as some old piece of equipment when she stopped doing what she was supposed to do.

Now, sitting at her desk, arms folded and head resting on them, eyes closed, she had kicked off her pumps and shed her blazer, dropping it to the side as she dropped her head softly to the desk. She hadn't moved in an hour, at least, and while she knew she had better things to do then mope, she couldn't quite gather the attention to get up and about.

The headache, a dull throbbing at the edges of her consciousness growing with each faint beat, wasn't helping matters and she was unwilling to take another pill for it. She'd thought that the headaches she'd suffered as a child were bad but they were nothing compared to the ones she got these days, monstrous things that she could feel coming on hours in advance but could do nothing to prevent.

Between the pain and the dreams, she was not going to tell Dr. Jameson anything about the people, she was finding herself talking to in the middle of the day. She wasn't crazy, wasn't mentally incompetent and the thought of someone throwing her in a rubber room and throwing away the key was almost more than she could bear.

With a grimace, but propelled by that disturbing thought, Bianca raised her head from the table slowly, swallowing as her world tipped and swayed in warning. Finally, with her back against her chair, she let out her breath, the pressure easing for a moment or two in her skull when she stilled. It wasn't much, not nearly enough, but she took the chance she had and picked up her phone, dialing quickly before once again closing her eyes to the bright lights of her office.

"Fusion, this is Simone speaking."

Flinching at the noise, Bianca yanked her phone over and fiddled with the side, finally managing to turn it down to a bare murmur, just enough to hear but not enough to do that to her head again. "Simone, this is Bianca. Is Greenlee there? I need to talk to her." A moment or two of silence and then Simone's chipper response of "Yeah, let me go get her" followed by another, longer pause before she heard Greenlee finally pick up.

"You wanna talk to Kendall?" Even over the phone, her voice was a mix of boredom and annoyance, no doubt tired of being interrupted in her work of throwing paper airplanes with Kendall and then getting in a fight over her made the better one. Bianca knew this for a fact, having been attacked by one of Greenlee's planes several months before when visiting the older women for a day of shopping and lunch.

It had taken a good fifteen minutes for all three of the cosmetic connoisseurs to get the folded paper out of Bianca's dark mane of hair and then another ten minutes to get her eye, struck badly by the nose of the doomed flight, to stop tearing up. The rest of the day had been spent listening to them snark at each about how it was, of course, the other woman's fault. "No," she started quickly, "No, I actually need David's work number. I mean, I can't reach him at your place and he isn't answering the cabin number."

"He went to work early this morning. One of the other surgeons is out and there's this big surgery on some old guy," Greenlee commented lightly and Bianca found an edge of amusement further easing her headache at how she said 'old guy'. "Plus, he's still recovering from that convention thing too."

"Convention thing?" Bianca echoed, slight curiosity brightening her effectively from her mood just a few moments before and deciding to keep it as long as she could.

"Yep." Bianca heard the click of heels and then a smack and a yelp that was without a doubt Simone. "Don't roll you eyes at your boss, employee. I'm telling you Bianca, trying to find good workers these days… Anyway, David was the guest speaker and everything and he got this plaque."

"Well, he is world-famous," Bianca noted absently, thumbing the cord of the phone thoughtfully, "So, can I get his number or can he call me tonight?"

"Yeah…" Yet another pause and then her voice came back and Bianca would bet money that the petite woman was nodding to herself. "He usually calls me when he gets out of surgery so I'll tell him that you called. You know he'll get back to you as soon as he can."

"Yeah, of course… just please don't forget…"

"Don't worry, I won't," Greenlee assured her and then asked, definite curiosity in her voice, "you feel okay? I can track down Kendall if you want. Want me to?"

"No, no… no, I'm fine, really, just don't forget to tell David I called… I gotta go, back to the daily grind so…"

"Yeah, of course—"

Bianca hung up, sitting back in her chair and staring at the phone for long moments, biting her lip. Life in Pine Valley had gone on without her, marriages and divorces and break-ups and everything else and she found herself oddly hurt by it. Sure she visited every once in a while and god knew her cousin and sister took every chance they had to come to the Seattle stores but the point was, she still felt oddly alone.

"Well, you wouldn't have to if you'd talk to me."

Bianca snapped her head up, staring at her for long moments, glaring, and finally snapped, "You're not real, okay? David's gonna figure out what's wrong with my head and fix it and you won't exist anymore. Not that that's saying much because you don't exist now."

"Just because a girl's dead doesn't mean we can't be useful, productive members of society, you know." Standing before Bianca's desk, she regarded Bianca with a mix of frustration and anger, arms crossed over her chest and eyes narrowed. "You might be able to scare away those others but I'm the long haul, baby and you're stuck with me."

Bianca slammed her hand down on the table, gasping at the pain but not any less angry. "Only until I figure out what's wrong with me. It's probably some kind of weird imbalance or something, something chemical maybe and I'll fix it. And when I do, you will show yourself to be exactly what I tell you, you are a figment of my imagination."

"Isn't it funny how now that I'm here that headache got better?" she snapped, and the smirk on her face was both pleased and angry, moving her hands to her hips and leaning back, stepping around the desk to observe Bianca more easily. "You're fighting us and we are going to keep fighting back and those headaches aren't going to stop until you stop being like this."

"You're not real!"

"Really, you're a doll, you know that? Here I am, trying to help you and protect you and what do I get? Yelled at…" She turned away, slinking around the table, although her gaze never left the young woman glaring at her in the chair. "I am trying to help you, why won't you believe that? You, what you're doing right now? All you're doing is hurting yourself, okay? If you keep doing this, some really unpleasant things are gonna worm their way into that pretty little head of yours and do some really unpleasant things."

"It's a headache," Bianca ground out but the woman, the thing that looked like a woman, snorted quietly. "And it keeps getting worse. The harder you fight us, the more damage you do to your head. It's something about your brain cells or something… I don't know exactly, Cordy just said that you have to let me help you. Hey, at least I'm good-looking; she wanted to send some Irish guy with bad fashion sense."

"Go away!" she shrieked and threw the phone, the heavy plastic machine hitting the carpet hard enough to send bits of white pieces scattering across it. Falling back into her seat, she swept her eyes around the office; searching for any hints of this 'person' and finding none, something that made her eyes close in quiet relief.

Five minutes later, her headache came back.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Come On**_

_Chapter Four_

_London, 2002_

_Nothing was quite as effective as cold-blooded murder. It had rid the world of some of the greatest minds and lives to ever exist, some pure and benevolent and others darker, dangerous, capable of deeds that would make a living man's blood run cold. This was the more insidious side of their work, the subtler nuances of manipulations and secrecy that had allowed them to stay alive in a world with powers far greater than those of simple humans._

_Cold-blooded murder, messy as it sometimes was, still worked better than any memory spell or bribe or threat. And there were no chances of a change of heart or a guilt trip. Simple and effective and the men and women who carried out these simple and effective means of self-preservation were hidden even among the Council._

_And it made their work even easier._

_Now, after checking the pulse with two fingertips, he straightened, yanking off his gloves and stuffing them into the back of his jeans, eying the cooling body with a dark gaze before nodding, turning away to check the office, glancing out the door into the dark hallway for a moment._

_The search through the books was easy enough, grazing the back of his hand across the bookshelves that lined the walls, stopping at every soft tingle he felt and getting that book, setting it to the side. Almost every one that raised his higher awareness was a journal and, replacing his gloves, he proceeded through the desk and drawers._

_The bullet had traveled easily through the large window, hitting Murphy right where it was supposed to and killing him instantly. His aim was unerring, even to some of the older, more practiced members of the wet works teams, and he had very rarely, if ever, missed a shot. Some of it was practice but they weren't idiots._

_He just knew how to kill._

_A half an hour later, quietly exciting the office, he carried one full box against his hip and looked for all the world like he was supposed to be there. Not a fingerprint, not a stray hair, not a single hint of anything wrong except for the small hole in the glass and the mess that lay on the floor of Murphy's office._

_And, just like that, he had eliminated a threat to the Council._

_

* * *

Seattle_

"She's a pretty little thing, huh?"

Jonathon looked up from the file in one hand, cocking an eyebrow at the skinny man in front of him, looking nervous and uneasy as his eyes darted around. There was no one around, but he didn't seem relieved by that. Biting back the urge to roll his eyes, Jonathon shifted attention back to the File, studying the small photo clipped to the side.

"This is all we had on her?"

"If I had more, I would brought you more," he muttered, tapping one toe on the pavement of the sidewalk in the park, a stark contrast to Jon's calm presence sitting on the bench, intently reading through the mix of medical and school records and the other assorted tid-bits that they were so damn good at gathering up.

Slipping the photo into one pocket of his jacket, he snapped shut the folder and then rolled it, slapping it on his hand twice before he stood, shoving it into an inner pocket in his leather jacket nodding to himself. "I'm gonna need you to stick your neck out here. If you hear anything else about her or the twin, I want you to bring it straight to me. Okay?"

"But—"

"No," he snapped, an edge in his voice. "No, you hear anything and you tell me or you keep it to yourself." The smaller man, a man who was surprisingly gifted at long-distance work, was pathetic when it came to the close and more personal work that Jonathon had always excelled at in addition to the long-distance work. "You got me, Pete?"

A long hesitancy, and then a beaten sigh, shoulders slumping as he nodded in defeat and it was enough for Jonathon. Moving forward, he patted Pete once on the shoulder before leaving the park, pulling the photo back out and studying it in the fading light, the growing dimness that he had watched gather wile waiting on the park bench.

He was straddling both worlds and, now, after years of careful movements before he had settled here, he found himself faced with a inner knowledge that he couldn't keep up such strain on himself and his body, not if he wanted to stay as good as he was at what he did. Sighing, exhaling softly, he climbed into his waiting car and started the ignition, heading to the apartment… wait.

* * *

_Pine Valley_

Brushing a few stray curls from her face, Kendall poked at her tropical drink with the end of the little umbrella, eying it with green eyes and, reaching down with a sigh, she slipped off her pump and rubbed her foot, digging in her thumb and trying to ease the stress that came from long hours of clenching and unclenching her feet in the offices, especially when Greenlee threw things at her.

Short, irritating midget with bad highlights…

Still, at least, unlike some people, she could apologize when she treated Kendall like she was crap. Snorting, sighing, Kendall dropped her foot from her lap, twisting on the bar stool to observe the inside of the Valley Inn with a chilly glance, feeling, as usual, pathetically lonely with Greenlee not around.

With a grimace, she downed her tropical drink, swallowing it down before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. This was her life now, her only friend being the woman who was, for all intents and purposes, her only real friend. She hadn't had sex since that one time that had ended so badly and an orgasm was beginning to be something she remembered with a hazy recollection.

Jesus, Binks probably had better luck than she did.

Kendall stopped, cocking her head as she considered before shaking it with sympathy for both herself and her sister. Shouldn't it be illegal for a Kane to go for more than a few weeks without sex of at least some kind? It just wasn't fair, not in the slightest and, pushing herself to her feet, she reached back and stuck the little umbrella in her ponytail, deciding that, just because she couldn't go on a vacation didn't mean that she had to look like she couldn't.

_

* * *

Cleveland_

She was quick on her feet and it was a good thing as she skillfully shot down the fire escape, hands slipping once or twice on some unrecognizable gunk that stunk to high heaven. She staggered when she finally got her feet on the cement of the alley, swaying for a moment before getting her balance and running.

Streaking around the corner, she let out a screaming sob of frustration when her heel caught on a crack in the pavement and she went down, slamming onto one knee and digging nails into the cement. Finally, after several tries, she managed to get on her feet again, limping for a moment before once more falling into her quick pace.

She kicked off her heels as she went, leaving them behind as she picked up the sounds of that thing, that creature, and tried to increase her pace even more, even though she was already going as fast as she could, her legs aching and her lungs burning, even with the extra stamina she had learned to finally control.

Thankfully, the talons hadn't nicked a vein and the only blood that stained her cream blouse came from the scratches that it had managed to give her, claws piercing her skin and the tearing when she managed to get a good kick at it, managed to get it off long enough to get her ass out of the apartment.

She bit her lip when she caught the sound of a heavy something hitting something else, and it jarred her, especially when she picked up the sound of claws scraping across metal, a noise that made her grit her teeth so badly that they ached. Turning a corner, she darted into a more open alley, blinking rapidly at the bright light for a moment before hearing that thing again.

Grabbing onto an old doorknob, she twisted, swore at the feel of the lock before, growling, she tensed her arm and then yanked, the wood around the lock splintering. When she heard old cans and bottles explode nearby, a few entering her line of vision while the scrabble of claws got closer, she threw her weight against the door, easily falling in.

Warehouse, she registered, picking up the shape of crates and forklifts, some of the crates rotting with age. Swallowing, shivering, she quickly left the door, darting into the shadows along the sides of the building, struggling to settle down her heavy breathing. She easily heard it when it entered, hearing the tail slide across the floor and the talons fumbling harshly.

She just had to be quiet, she decided, eyes searching for any kind of weapon, anything she could grip and hit it with. The knife hadn't worked, hadn't been able to get through the scales and leathery skin, so she needed something heavy, something she could swing easily, use to break bone or a skull.

She was so busy searching the floor with something heavy to swing that, when something heavy slammed into the crates beside her, she almost shrieked, holding it back only by digging her teeth into her lip and sucking back her breath. Quickening her pace, she stepped quickly through the aisles of boxes and crates, becoming more desperate as she looked for something, anything, to give her an edge.

Turning a corner, she froze, eyes falling on the creature, which had gone still, like some great cat, regarding her with large eyes, still on four legs, simply gazing at her like she was just food, like she was a cow or a chicken who didn't know what was what and didn't understand that she had only one purpose in her existence.

The reason this thought pissed her off was because, hey, she was a goddamn vegetarian.

She was about to run into the other aisles when, in an fit of dust and shattering wood, the crates along one side exploded outward, hitting that grotesque mix of lizard and cat like an avalanche, toppling and rolling, little toys and made in Taiwan items finally stilling as Connor climbed through the gape he had made in the wall, eyes falling on her.

He didn't look much better than he had when she had dropped him off at his place, but the bleeding had stopped, the heavy marks where the sledgehammer had landed now an angry and disturbing purple. Still, in jeans and one of his usual long-sleeved shirts, he looked better than the normal person would have looked after being beaten to an inch of their life by a sledgehammer-wielding demon with super-strength.

Swallowing, she moved forward, grabbing his hand and hauling herself up, glancing down at the thing buried beneath all this crap. "It's not dead," Connor supplied, eyes alight with violent hate as he stared down at the mess beneath their feet. "I can still hear it and its breathing… it just isn't happy."

"Well, then, let's leave, huh?" Hissing but not fighting when he helped her up the last few steps by holding her arms, feeling a flood of relief when her feet finally got on the floor, she fled the warehouse with him, following him up the fire escapes and traveling on the rooftops toward his apartment.

London 

The Council, at least what was left of it, had hardened over the years since the explosion that had rocked the headquarters years before and the ones left were known to be colder and harsher than the older Council, the one that had been destroyed in a blast of fire and heat, no help coming to those out in the field, scrambling to survive.

They had… survived, that is, but not without scars. In some, the wounds remained as ghastly marks inflicted by the curved blades of the Bringers or in hints of some of the inquisitions given by The First's followers. In others, it was the worn look of somebody who was cursed to live while their husband or wife, brother or sister, father or son, mother or daughter, had not.

They had always been stern, and yet, despite some of their darker aspects, they had existed for the simple reason of keeping the Line going, of training the girls who were touched with that something so faint, so ghostly, only the heightened powers of magick could sometimes just barely detect it.

Or, of course, the casual geneticist with a good eye…

Stepping off the elevator, she took off, striding down the hall, adjusting her name tag as she went, checking that her hair was up and out of her way as she made a beeline for the office that was her own, passing by the other offices and cubicles, some of whom shot her wary looks, fears of her little virus stronger than any terror encountered by some of the creatures brought in to study.

She was used to it by now.

Entering her office, she stopped on a dime, settling her face into a friendly mask as the gentleman studying her family pictures turned to her, a slight frown on his aging features. He was one of those men who aged well, and she let her gaze flick up and down his frame quickly, noticing that he was using no cane, like Travers had.

Unlucky that he had no weak leg to kick in if he came after her.

Leaving the bulletin board where her pictures were pinned, he held out one hand, smiling pleasantly as she scrambled mentally, trying to come up with the right response. When she finally set her hand in his, he raised it, planting a kiss on the soft skin of the back, a move that made her stomach twist in her middle. "Ms. Scorpio."

"Call me Robin," she managed as she tried to wench her hand out of his hold, something that he didn't seem to like, for his fingers tightened almost painfully before at last releasing her. The meaning behind it was imperceptible but there, a sharp edge in his gaze of warning against disrespect.

Effortlessly putting the desk between them, she took a seat in her chair, making herself move things around and feeling his gaze on her. By the time he had taken a seat opposite hers, Robin was feeling the first touches of perspiration on the back of her neck and her hands itched to reach back and scratch the skin.

"You expect me to believe that my best researcher can find nothing in the blood samples I had brought to you?"

She looked up and stopped, pinned by the ice blue eyes that his son had inherited. But there was something vicious and cruel in the back of his eyes, something that wasn't present in Wesley's even on his worst days. Wesley could be ruthless and could be harsh but he was never cruel, never vicious.

"Not yet, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce but then, I just started the work on them…" She reached up, absently flicking an escaped strand of brown hair from her face. "Genetics are not easy, you know that; it takes a lot of hard work and intense concentration to do what we do…" Again, she hesitated and hated that she was letting herself be intimated by an older man like himself. "I'm doing my best."

"Your best isn't good enough." He reached out, set one hand on her desk and leaned forward, freezing her with those disturbingly cold eyes of his, empty of anything other than that greedy ambition that had allowed him to survive all that he had while others of the Council had fallen by the boatload. "Seeing as how my son has that girl hidden, I need some means of finding what I need and this is where you come in. Your job is to find me what's in that woman's blood."

"Mr. Wyndam-Pryce—"

Robin jerked when he slammed the hand back down on the desk, making some of her picture frames topple, making her coffee slosh onto her papers. "It took a little bit of work, seeing as how some of Rupert's little pets are in Seattle but I got you what you need, I got you all the blood you could need or could ever want. You, Ms. Scorpio, are useful… you're gifted at what you do and that's why we put up with you."

"I'm doing all of the tests," she noted quietly, calmly, the last thing she needed was to become one of the many missing scientists that had not done their job or kept their mouths shut. "So far, I'm finding no indication of the alterations but I haven't stopped my work and I will not stop my work. Sir, you will get exactly what you need."

There was a long silence, and he reminded her of some coiled snake, deceptively slow and seeming harmless until he caught sight of the chink in the armor or the flaw in the design and struck with all that he was, effortlessly obliterating his enemies, one at a time, fearless in the face of death.

If Robin didn't hate him so damn much, she might have respected his inner strength.

_

* * *

Pine Valley_

David observed the phone nearby him with intense dark eyes, fingering the cord thoughtfully as he considered. It was ridiculous to get so worried after just a phone call, he knew it but still, he couldn't help the warning that he could feel in the back of his mind, something that told him that there was more to it than just Bianca's headaches.

She was hiding something and he didn't like it.

David was a survivor, he just was, something he got from Vanessa, she of the great and evil bitch queens and, while there were times that he despised being related to her in any way, shape or form, he had come to accept the fact that her habits, good and ill, had taught him to take care of himself.

Surviving was something that both he and Greenlee were good at, something that they learned to do early in their lives because, hey, it wasn't like anybody else would ever take care of you, right? They had survived their childhoods, at least partly and, somehow, they had survived when Leo had died, leaving them alone in so many painful ways.

Leaning back in his chair, he set his feet up on his desk, continuing to eye the phone, biting the inside of his cheek absently, trying to pinpoint exactly what it was in the conversation that had set off his alarm bells and unable to past the slight break in her sentences, a weakness that he had picked up even though he felt her trying to hide it.

A few minutes later, sighing, he was dialing the number and waiting for the other person to pick up.

* * *

_Seattle_

If Frankie Stone had known that the last thing she'd ever say to Maggie was "Why don't you steal your own damn clothes, huh?" she probably would have found something better and more meaningful to say. As it was, she had accepted that Maggie could not see her, feel her or hear her and it made no sense, not with the twin thing.

Their connection, even at the worst of times, had always been present, sometimes as nothing more than a warm knowledge in the back of the consciousnesses that their other was somewhere, even if you they couldn't see each other. Frankie, upon realizing that she was, in fact, dead, had not spared a single though to her mother.

She had set out with every intention to find Maggie, talk to her and do something. She didn't know what she was supposed to do but there was something she had to do, an innate something that was a constant buzz just beneath the surface of her thoughts, something that was becoming more desperate as the time ticked on and she watched Maggie do what she was doing.

It was no way to live.

Bianca, she had finally realized, was exactly what she was supposed to be, this brilliant beacon in the shadows that she felt on the edge of her awareness and the others swarmed around her like honeybees, not understand why but responding to her presence as they naturally would. Cordy, ever tactful, had called Bianca a 'box of donuts in the great universe that is Homer.'

Frankie had found that she understood that explanation way better than any of the mumbo-jumbo that that the Guide had offered, things like blind guys touching an elephant and being one with the universe. So, here she was, trying to protect Bianca from some of the nastier things that she was unknowingly letting into her head and trying to get everything where it was supposed to be.

Turning away from the tossing and turning figure in the bed, mumbling, she walked to the window—she refused to hover because, really, it looked so stupid—and peered out, frowning at the sight of the car sitting silent and still below, the shape that rarely, if ever moved.

Walking through the bedroom door—something that felt eerily like walking through a pane of glass made of warm mist—she stepped, silently of course, down the stairs and then through the front door, thicker than the first and enough to make her invisible shape shudder slightly at the inherent fear of being caught in that huge hunk of dead wood.

Frankie found that while she could step easily enough through manmade materials—she didn't even realize she was most times, there being such an ease behind it—dead wood and vegetation proved to make her feel like she was touching something empty on all the levels of existence, an odd thing to feel for the girl who had never once really thought about any of this stuff growing up.

Walking through forests, something she had once just to do it, had proved to be a liberating experience for the unseen spirit, feeling the entire time like she was shedding herself of something heavy and rotting each time she waltzed her way through a fern or an oak, leaving her feeling cleaner and more real with each step.

What she wouldn't do to be in a forest at the moment.

It took seconds—maybe minutes, maybe hours but it felt like seconds—for her to slip into the passenger seat of the car, following his line of sight to Bianca's window in the night, no light shining and she turned back regarding Jonathon Lavery with narrow eyes and an odd and sudden awareness that she did not like him.

He made the energy—boy, didn't that sound stupid?—stand up along her spine and, feeling suddenly chilled, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, wishing she hadn't died in a tank top in the middle of summer. Noticing the feeling made it even stronger and she peered at him, not quite understanding what it was about the dark eyes that was affecting her—not her body but her existence if that was even the word—so badly.

At least until he turned his head, met her gaze with his own and grinned. "So you would be the one and only Frankie Stone… I'd shake your hand but you don't exactly have one." He cocked his head, chuckled at her wide-eyed look of shock and lifted an eyebrow. "So, is there anything you might lie to tell me about you sister?"


	5. Chapter 5

_**Come On**_

_Chapter Five_

_London_

With another flustered flick of her wrist, Robin tucked more of the loose brown strands behind one ear and, despite how much she actually loved her new haircut, the constant lack of control concerning her brown tresses when she was working was becoming problematic at the least.

She had cut the bangs just a little bit too much and they refused to be tamed by her usual hair bands or even the occasional pen or pencil she used to secure her locks when she was working long nights… like tonight.

Although her medical issues and the fact that she was not actually English had, at first, been challenging to her work and studies regarding the Council's growing fascination with genetics and all the enhancements it might just be able to pull off, the voices that had vouched for her, however few, had been loud enough to be heard even among the most influential of the Council.

Hence, she got the nice workroom.

The first attempts to separate the Slayers from other versions of humanity had proven to be far more difficult and complex than any of the first scientists had anticipated and, even with the efforts to enhance studies through sorcery and energy manipulation, it had been too intricate for them. After a thorough several months of conferences and meetings, all of those first projects had been scrapped.

The innate potentials of the regular old Joes, on the other, hand had been looked at again with more carefulness and they had found a whole new world to explore, and years of research already started by regular scientists on the psychic potential of the 'enhanced' human beings had led to a reawakening of their curiosity.

Robin, with the connections that her parents had and her own intelligence, had very quickly risen through the ranks of scientists at the main facility and, while she had many weaknesses in her methods—her level of caring towards one dangerous subject especially—she had proven time and again to be a strength to everything they worked to achieve.

Eying the folder at her side, she reached out, fingering the smooth material of the file gently as she read the name she had written on this particular subject. Swallowing, she wiped at her face, overcome for a moment with her emotions before she got a hold on herself, bracing herself as she flipped it open and studied the papers that she had memorized.

Height, weight, eye color, physical build, medical history, research history, psychological examinations… it was everything, everything from his birth and on, as far back as they could find, all condensed into a few sheets of what, to most eyes, would look like nothing but white paper.

In the silence of the mostly dark workroom, she smoothed fingers across the white sheets, before, unable to take it, her eyes shifted to the small photo clipped to the inside of the folder, the last image they had of him, the one that had been passed to everybody in their almost frightening desperation to track him down.

Plucking the photo out of the clip, she leaned back in her chair, running a thumb pad along the smooth edge of the shot, studying it and drinking in the sight, wondering if he had changed anything and knowing, at the same time, that he had no reason to, not with the stuff that he could pull off with such terrifying ease.

No, he still looked the same, something she knew without a doubt and clearing her throat, roughly pushing back strong emotions and even stronger questions that she almost didn't want answered. Blinking rapidly and half expecting somebody to pop up, wondering why she was moping over the picture of the most dangerous enemy they had…

_Yeah, great…_ quickly replacing the photo, she shoved the file into her workbag, quickly returning her attention to her work, and, as Fate would deem it, never picking up the presence of the miniscule camera nearby, keeping perfect track of her movements, and, as Fate would also have it, the act of Robin Scorpio moping over a dangerous enemy of the Council like a lovesick fool.

Which, oddly enough, wouldn't be far from the truth.

_

* * *

Seattle_

Frankie, make-believe woman extraordinaire, sat atop Bianca's kitchen counter, studying the woman moving around restlessly. With dark hair pulled back in a loose braid and, clad in shorts and tank top, she moved around, intent on ignoring the petite ghost swinging her legs and muttering something about peanut butter and chocolate.

Bianca froze, hands stilling in the middle of stacking plates, turning her head slowly to regard the 'girl' sitting there, realizing what she had just mentally addressed her as. Ghost…? Was she a ghost? What would that mean, this Frankie woman being a ghost? Warily, Bianca narrowed her eyes, watching as Frankie started gnawing the edge of a thumbnail, eyes on the kitchen tiles, legs still swing childishly.

In the last two days of Bianca's willing flee from society, which included her hiding out at her home, refusing to answer calls and/or e-mails, she had learned the this 'Frankie'—if that was her real name—refused to leave her be. Every where she went, bam, there was Frankie, following her around like a dog after a bone or a toddler after cookies or Kendall and Greenlee after a new pair of Manolos.

Honestly, Stick Woman and Midget Girl sniffed them out like freaking bloodhounds…

Shaking herself, and with a sudden flood of purpose, Bianca set the last plates up and, wiping her hands on a rag, she cast the 'ghost' one last long look before she left the room, striding resolutely towards her computer. Clicking off the screensaver and thankful for her DSL, she quickly began Google-ing with a vengeance, brows furrowed in concentration and intent on her work.

Aware of the movement, she looked up, blinking at the sight of Frankie sitting cross-legged on the desk next to the computer and knowing that it shouldn't be possible but still able to see the girl, sitting there, not at all looking odd where she was staring right back at Bianca with a slight smirk. "Get away from my computer… ghost girl."

"'Ghost girl'?" she echoed, cocking one eyebrow in amusement. When Bianca glared, she made a noise of amusement, shrugged slim shoulders, slapping palms down on her denim-clad knees. "I've been waiting for you to get off your ass and do something other than mope around." She jerked her head at the monitor, smiled lightly. "The name's Mary Francis Stone."

For long moments, she just stared at the girl sitting there before, not quite sure what to say with those sad eyes gazing at her before, with a rough swallow, she typed in the name, jabbing the ENTER key quick and hard, waiting. A few seconds later, she leaned forward, eyes on the lines of text, on the word that jumped out at her.

With an unusual kind of calm, she opened the window, staring at it, reading it repeatedly before, raising her eyes, she met that slightly sad gaze, looking oddly correct with the smile and the way she sat, looking back at her with an amazing sense of grace on her face. Finally, feeling like an idiot, she whispered, "Sorry."

Frankie laughed at that, shrugged again, slim shoulders moving flawlessly. "One minute, I'm waiting for big sis to get home and the next thing I know, I don't know anything except for the fact that I'm not anywhere and that, as of right now, I'm completely different." She sighed, shook her head in irritation. "And I never got to wear my new jacket either."

"Frankie—"

"I've been making a lot of promises to a lot of people since I woke up dead and I have decided, after a long discussion with someone, that I am tired of sitting back and hoping everything goes right. This means, Bianca-la, that if you leave this house, I will follow because as far as right now, the Powers and the Big She or He or They up there have decided that a Seer would be more useful alive and not dead."

A long moment of silence, a pregnant and then Bianca's curious chirp filled the room, staring at the dead girl that she was actually talking to and staring at. "'Seer?'" she asked, eyebrows lifting in questioning.

* * *

"And you're sure it's her, Jonathon?"

Jonathon didn't stop in his work, continued speaking to the speaker phone as he began slowly repacking everything he had so carefully cleaned. "The dead ones hanging around her like a fly around honey." He snapped the case shut, set it to the side. "You got the blood samples?"

"Yes, of course…"

He nodded, began putting away the next pieces, insanely relieved. "You can't slip up here, not after all this. We're way too close now to let anything happen to jeopardize this." He snapped that case shut as well and finally stood up, moving away from the table and poking thoughtfully at his new coffee maker, wishing Bianca hadn't brought him so complicated. Grimacing, he put on a kettle, unwilling to have the damn coffee maker growl at him like it usually did. "And what about the others in this town? The Slayer and that guy with the whiney voice?" he asked more loudly.

"They're here for the same reason we are… at least—"

"Basically," Jonathon finished absently, pulling the coffee from the shelf and setting it down. Turning away from the counter, he went back to the table, yanking on his undershirt and then grabbing the holster nearby, pulling it closer and checking the last two guns as he waited for the water to heat completely.

Leaning closer, fingers pausing over the button, he added, almost as an afterthought, "Watch yourself, Wes… my senses are tingling and they aren't tingling in a good kind of way." And then he ended the call, staring at the phone for a few minutes before turning back to the kettle, sighing quietly, sick and tired of having to do all this.

But, hey, that was one of the few things Roger didn't lie about when he said that, for all intents and purposes, Jonathon Lavery lived only to do these things, destroy lives and devastate any hint of something like a good life, tearing it to shreds with a bullet in just the right spot at just the right moment.

He lived to kill.

_

* * *

Pine Valley_

"And you want me to…?"

"Look—" He broke off and she heard him going through shelves, shuffling through the many papers that he kept at the cabin, the few things that he had refused, point-blank, to let her change when she had cautiously moved in after the vicious divorce that would haunt her to her dying day. "Give me a second," David muttered and she nodded, knowing full well that he couldn't see it but knowing that he got the point anyway.

With phone between ear and shoulder, Greenlee was the last person left in Fusion at the moment and, while some women might be freaked at the prospect of being alone at a time like this, Greenlee's fears usually revolved around her heels not matching her handbag or David going to the hospital without shoes in the middle of the night, something that he had been known to do actually, the reason he kept two pairs there for when he did something like that.

Now, sitting in the darkened office, only the light over her desk on, she studied her nails for a moment before resuming her filing with a steady strength, catching at the edges quickly and buffing them down. Listening to the vague noises of David digging around like a madman, she lifted her eyes, frowning at something for a moment before she shook herself.

When he came back on, she held up one hand, eying them for a long moment with sharp dark eyes as she listened. "I've been trying to cal Bianca for hours and she's not responding. I need you, next time you talk to her, to get the first flight back to pine Valley so I can talk to her."

"That's what phones are for," she murmured quietly and then smiled the slightest bit when he made that familiar noise of frustration when it came to dealing with the shortest of the Kane-Montgomery clan, and that edge of helpless amusement just beneath the irritation brought on only by her. "Besides, with Dr. Evil on her side, she'll be fine."

"Please promise me, okay?"

She set her file down, leaning forward in her seat, eyes once again rising to the shadows around the room, again frowning and not quite knowing why. Sighing, shaking the weirdness off, she rolled her bare shoulders, slipping feet into her heels as she started checking that everything else was ready for her to leave. "Look, if she calls back, I'll tell her to take the next flight home. Is that satisfying, hubby of mine?"

A long silence, more shuffling, this time agitated sounds as he organized them restlessly and then his voice came back, and she grimaced slightly at the touch of weariness in his tone, knowing full well how the last weeks of political movement at the hospital had been draining him and, to judge by the worry evident as well, he was being nagged by something with to do with her step-sister/cousin.

"When are you going home?"

"Joe can't come in tonight so I'll be here for a while." A dry chuckle, humorless but not quite bitter—somebody who loved what he did the way he enjoyed what he did could never really be bitter but, still, he had a right to be pissy about being pretty much stood up by the Martin patriarch.

"Okay," she muttered, standing as her eyes settling where Kendall's desk was, on the other side of the room, a dark spot that nagged her unhappily. "I'll be at the cabin if I can't track down the Stick I call my step-sister," she added darkly before letting him go, dropping the phone back into its cradle and, before she stepped away from her own desk, she snatched up her nail file.

Okay, so it wasn't really all that lethal looking but it was something, right?

Stalking forward, she froze when something moved, her eyes adjusting the shadows slowly and then she threw herself backward, letting out a strangled shriek as she hopped, desperately trying not to tip off her heels and fall on her ass, and, when she found her balance, she lunged forward, stabbing furiously with her not-so-deadly weapon.

And Ryan Lavery let out a yelp of agony when she jabbed him hard right in the face.


End file.
